When Kevin Spitzer first rented a former auto repair shop just off E Union in the late ’90s, it was his studio, a raw, industrial space in a then-neglected stretch of Seattle’s Central District.
“This was actually my sculpture studio in here before the theater,” Spitzer says. “It was Jean’s first tenant when she and Jack bought the building out of an auction.”
The building at 1411 21st Ave has lived many lives since it was constructed in 1929. “It was originally built in ’29 as a car dealership. “Pretty sure it was Ford,” Spitzer explains. “Then what I heard is it became a dairy for, like decades, it was a bottling plant.” By the time the Spitzers arrived, the area was far from the bustling hub it is today.
This summer, Central Cinema is celebrating its 20th year in the neighborhood — though it has been on the block a little longer.
“There was no 20/20 Bike Shop, or Katie’s coffee or anything like that,” Kate Spitzer remembered. “It was like storefronts with plywood on them. The gas station was just Jimmy and Al fixing cars.”
At first, Kevin used the cavernous space as a metalworking studio. But after their son arrived — “He was supposed to come after the theater opened, but he won by three months,” Kate jokes — they pivoted to something new: a pub theater, inspired by places they had seen in Portland.
“The original idea we stole from Portland,” Kevin said. “Pub theaters. And there was also Bridgeport Brewing, which had an amazing pizza kitchen in their brewery.”
Transforming the space was anything but easy. “We had to cut the concrete floor for drains,” Kate said. “It wasn’t like there were bathrooms or a kitchen here before.” The couple built nearly everything themselves: walls, risers, the kitchen, repurposing parts of the old auto shop along the way.
When Central Cinema finally opened in 2003, it became one of Seattle’s last independent neighborhood theaters, a quirky, welcoming place where locals gathered for cult classics, fresh pizza, and the occasional intermission beer run.
“At the beginning, it was very simple digital stuff,” Kevin said. “Like a large-scale office projector.” But when studios stopped shipping physical reels in the early 2010s, indie theaters faced a crisis: upgrade to digital cinema projectors (DCP) or lose access to first-run films.
“They basically sent out letters and said, ‘You have to convert to DCP or not get any movies.’” With the help of a successful Kickstarter campaign, they raised enough to install a proper digital projector by 2012.
Even then, it wasn’t smooth sailing. “Our projector was 12 years old, and the lamps were $700 each,” Kevin said. Just last year, they upgraded again, this time to a laser projector, helping secure the theater’s future.
One of Central Cinema’s most beloved features, the intermission, was something they stumbled on by accident. “That was something we discovered sort of after a while, being a beer theater,” Kevin said. “The first time we put an intermission in. Everybody clapped, got up and went to the bathroom. Then we sold like a dozen desserts and six more pitchers of beer.”
Their food has evolved too. Early attempts at upscale fare, “We actually served duck confit here,” Kevin said, gave way to a pizza-and-beer focus. But during the pandemic, supply chain chaos forced a menu change, this time a physical one. “We couldn’t get french fries for three weeks,” Kate said. “We were reprinting menus every couple days, crossing things off. Going digital just made sense.”
COVID was their biggest test. “We were closed for 18 months,” Kate said. To stay connected, they created Baron Von Terror’s Horror Stream. “We didn’t want to just sell streaming tickets like Netflix,” Kevin explained. “We set up a camera in the theater so it felt like you were there.”
Reopening brought more reinvention. They eliminated tipping and raised staff wages to $30/hour. “We did the math, raised prices 20%, and paid everyone what they’d make in tips,” Kevin said. “No more bickering over sections, no more servers getting stiffed. And payroll used to take hours, now it’s just entering hours.”
Meanwhile, the economics of movie theaters are a bit of a rocky horror picture show. Seattle’s leading film institution SIFF is struggling and its Capitol Hill screen at the Egyptian Theatre remains darkened with no clear path to reopening.
Now stabilized after the pandemic’s changes and finally getting around to celebrating 20 years, Central Cinema continues to thrive as a scrappy, hyperlocal institution. As for the future? “We always kick around the idea of opening up earlier on the weekends,” Kevin mused. “Maybe more live performances, but still movie-based.”
Whatever comes next, the screen will keep lighting up. “We’ll keep figuring it out,” Kate said. “That’s what we do.”
Central Cinema is now showing at 1411 21st Ave with a mix of cult classics, new releases, and special events. Their full calendar is at central-cinema.com.
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